Tentative

I usually rationalize my personality traits and gut reactions to things based on my astrological sign, Libra. (Happy birthday to all you Libras out there.) However, before leaving my last job, I received a personality profile that has given me a more fine-tuned explanation for my sometimes eccentric behaviour.

The profile was fascinating. Not because it illuminated intimate traits i didn't know i had, but rather because it had charts, graphs, color coding, and sophisticated language for things i have always known about myself. It had predictions, warnings, and advice the likes of which my financial advisor couldn't even imagine! I'm not one for statistics, columns, and rows. But, there is something kinda magical about your deepest, most cellular being mapped out on an x and y axis.

Basically, it told me this:

I am a manically social person who abhors structure, rules, and oversight. I will rebel at the slightest oppression, but genuinely cultivate peace and fairness. I like to think about things for a bit and cannot be rushed. Diplomacy comes naturally, as does calmly reacting to change. I will become grumpy and unsocial when i feel overwhelmed though.

One word for the last month: overwhelmed.

In a good way. In a not so good way. In a scary, exciting, anxious, exhilarating, exhausting, sad, lovely way.

Leaving a job. Starting a job. Starting a relationship. Maintaining relationships. Planning a party. Planning a vacation. Planning another party. Traveling. Interviewing. It is enough to make a girl want to take her Shih Tzu and go into hiding. Which is pretty much what i've done tonight and may continue to do for a while.

Calmly reacting to change is all great and wonderful until you find that you haven't done laundry in weeks, the library has turned you into collections, and your dog (not to mention your friends) has been assigned to another "calm" and "diplomatic" person. You know that scene in Ab Fab...the one where Edina gets an electronic planner and it keeps beeping at her until she gets so overwhelmed she throws the damn thing out the window. Like Edina, I am going to, in a totally calm and non-aggressive way, scream "Give me back my life!" to the universe and hope that it works. The universe is just going to have to cancel some meetings. You can’t live your life under that sort of pressure, darling.

So, I no longer have time for petals in my life. I want stems. At least for now…at least until I pay a bill and take a yoga class and feel a little bored. I am diplomatically and calmly tentative until further notice.